We’re back in the City of Angels. We had a wonderful, golden summer in Maine! It was full of fresh food from the garden and the farm market and family and friends visiting. It was the kind of summer where your bathing suit never fully dries out because you go swimming every day and your feet get dirty and dry from being barefoot in the garden. I feel refreshed, and as the seasons turn to busier times I reluctantly re-purpose myself.
I can’t believe that it’s been a year since I started this blog! I promised that I would keep it up for my first year in L.A. I had envisioned that I would have reached some kind of peace or have some kind of clearer purpose in my new home by now, and I’m not sure that I have lived up to my own expectations on this point. I definitely need to keep writing, digging through words to help me find my footing in my life these days. Thank you so much for being with me. Writing this helps me so much, keeps me clearer and more honest and positive than I can be when my words are just for my eyes alone.
So far this week sort of feels like an, (albeit much milder,) echo of my disoriented arrival last year. A little over a week ago I was eating fresh peaches from my tree in Maine. I was closing up the house, cleaning for our winter renter, putting the garden to bed and trying to squeeze in some last minute visits with friends and family. Then a long plane trip away from the cold northern coast and finally a descent into a sea of lights. Tim agreed, the first few days back in L.A. after a summer in Maine are disorienting. The dusty sunshine, the traffic and freeways, the city blocks stretching on and on, Carnicerias and lowriders with la Virgen stickers on them, and all the stylishly dressed and coiffed people on the west side. These are just things that, for better or worse, you never or rarely see in Maine. We went to the farmer’s market in Hollywood and wandered through the crowded maze of amazing fresh figs, jewel-like plums and tomatoes piled high. I ate a fresh date, which was lightly golden in color with surprising flesh the texture of an apple. It was like something wonderful from another planet. And speaking of another planet, the first day that I descended into the asphalt solar collector that is the San Fernando Valley to go on some soul scarring errands to a series of big box stores, I felt like I was on one. I really can’t complain too much though, now that I live in sunny Topanga, in the mountains between the sea and the valley, where the sun almost always shines, but not too hot, and we hear coyotes and owls in the night. Even here though, in this new place I love, my heart goes out to Maine with its bad weather, dilapidated houses, bumpy roads and poor dental hygiene.
I can’t say that I am always particularly happy to be back here right now….because sometimes I’m not. But a week in Maine alone without Tim and the kids was enough to remind me of how much I love and miss them and don’t like to be far from them for long. And this first week back has brought me that wonderful taste of fresh date, a celebratory dinner party with some good friends and a visit to the hospital in Burbank to meet another friends’ beautiful, brand new, elfin baby daughter. I’m so happy to be here for these events with these people that I care about. And I’m happy to have the anchors of friendship to tie me to both my homes.
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